David Foster Wallace. We tend to know way less about why we feel certain ways about objects and pursuits we are devoted to than about the objects and pursuits themselves. It’s a lot easier to fix something if you can see it. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care. “What if you just love? Without deciding? You just do?” “Then in such a case your temple is self and sentiment. Then in such an instance you are fanatic of desire, a slave to your individual subjective narrow selfs sentiments; a citizen of nothing. You become a citizen of nothing. You are by yourself alone.”. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. All life is the same, as citizens of the human state: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again. Persons change, leave, die, become ill. They leave, lie, go mad, have sickness, betray you, die. Your nation outlives you. A cause outlives you. Nothing bring you together like a common enemy. Our attachments are our temple, what we worship, no? What we give ourselves to, what we invest with faith. Learn to do nothing, with your whole head and body, and everything will be done by what’s around you. A poor sports punishment is always self inflicted . You want to be great, you give every ball everything. And then some. You concede nothing. You play right up to your limit and then pass your limit. You enter a trance. What goes around comes around. Over 50% of persons with a substance addiction suffer from some other recognized form of psychiatric disorder, too. It takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds . No matter how smart you think you are, you are actually way less smart than that. Most substance addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking. Having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. People have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. Concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. It takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. Over 60% of all persons arrested for drug and alcohol related offenses report being sexually abused as children . It is simply more pleasant to be happy than to be pissed off. The people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. It is often more fun to want something than to have it. Certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. No single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. Tattoos are chillingly permanent. It is statistically easier for low-IQ people to kick an addiction than it is for high-IQ people. A clean room feels better to be in than a dirty room. Alcoholics hearts are swollen to nearly twice the size of civilians hearts, and they will never again return to normal size. You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. There is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. Everyone is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. Skin is the body’s biggest excretory organ. Having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward. Turn my will and life over to the care of clichés. One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back. Cliched directives are a lot more deep and hard to actually do. To try and live by instead of just say. Easy does it. The kid has to learn by his own experience how to learn to balance the short and long term pursuit of what he wants. Almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Live and let live. The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you. Why is the truth usually not just un but anti-interesting?. They omit to mention that the way it gets better and you get better is through pain. Not around pain, or in spite of it. The wise old whiskery fish swims up yo three young fish and goes, “morning, boys, how’s the water?” And swims away; and the three young fish watch him swim away and look at each other and go, “What the fuck is water?” and swim away